C'est La Vie
by domina tempore
Summary: There's a fine line between "not looking too close" and "oblivious". Sometimes, Nate can be oblivious. (Set after Uncharted 3)


_Author's Note: IuvenesCor (on AO3) got me into this series (and how THAT happened, I'll never understand), and I am incredibly grateful to her for it. This came about as a result of a cracky conversation we had, and an (mostly) unrelated story I was working on at the time that I unfortunately never finished. However I still liked this one, and it's shippy enough that I can justify posting it on Valentines Day. _

**ovo**

Nate has never looked too closely at Elena's scars.

It's not like he's never seen her whole body before, anyways - he knows every line and ridge and smooth shape. And certainly he's seen plenty of other girls with impressive scars in his line of work (he's given Chloe no less than three of her own, and hadn't those days been something?). Besides, if he can say so himself, most of his own scars are rather dashing and manly. Rakish, maybe, if he wants to start sounding like a walking dictionary.

But Elena is different. The stories and memories are different. He glosses over the marks on her body during the day, and they are safely blurred by the dark of night so that he doesn't have to think about it. Because those scars, that trip through hell and back had been his fault, and if he is faced with the results of his actions (the naked truth) fully and by light of day, he isn't sure if he can handle that.

It's much easier to pretend that it's the definition of muscles, or the folds of their sheets than to acknowledge that he almost killed her.

**ovo  
**  
It's not until a few months after Yemen that he notices something different. He's rubbing her back, slow lazy circles one night, and it's enough to startle him out of his doze into full wakefulness. He runs his fingers back carefully along the offending spiderwebs of unfamiliar scar tissue at the small of her back. "What's this?" he asks, tapping her gently.

Elena shifts under the covers and opens one sleepy eye to look up at him. "What are you talking about?" she mumbles.

"Right here," he taps again with the pads of his fingers. "Did you get hurt and not tell me?"

Elena looks confused. Shifting her body again, she reaches back to touch Nate's fingers and feel what he is feeling. A slow grin spreads over her face, and she pats his cheek with her free hand. "Oh, Nate," she giggles, and rolls onto her side. She wraps his arm around her waist and closes her eyes again. "Go back to sleep."

Nate is very much unsatisfied. "Don't mess with me, 'lena. What is it?"

"If it's honestly taken you this long to notice, you can wait until morning to see it."

"See what? Elena..." He pulls his arm away and pokes her lightly in the side. Her reaction does a little to reassure him that she hasn't actually been injured, but barring that he can't imagine what caused the unfamiliar marks.

It takes a few minutes of poking and prodding, but eventually Elena gives in, if only to shut him up so she can sleep. "It's a tattoo," she explains, "and you can't really tell me that you've _never_ seen it before?"

"A _tattoo_?" Nate repeats, just to make sure that he's heard her right. Because a tattoo is something he might expect from Chloe, maybe; but Elena? They're married, for goodness sake! He's never even considered his wife to be the tattoo type, but if she isn't screwing with him like he half-expects, what does this say about him? "No way. Let me see!"

Elena flips obligingly onto her stomach (rolls her eyes too), and Nate tears aside the covers until he can see the area in question. He blinks, squints at the markings that might be ink but might just as well be scars. He leans over to click the light on, and when his vision adjusts he can read the words inked into her skin. "_C'est la vie_?" he mumbles. "_This is life_, really? Did you get this after...you know?" _After we almost got divorced_ is the unspoken question, but neither of them really knows how to bring this up and what would they say about it, anyways?

Elena overlooks the elephant in the room and pulls the covers back on. "I got it right after I almost got blown up," she informs him, and there's hardly any fear in her voice anymore when she says it (now why can she put things in words?). "I didn't particularly care for the scar that was left there, so I covered it. Are you seriously telling me that you didn't realize I had this?"

It sounds so much more ridiculous of him when she says it like that. "No offense, but when I've got you naked there are more important things on my mind than tattoos." He chuckles and hopes that she doesn't give him crap.

She does. "You are the blindest, stupidest man that I've ever met, you know that?"

Nate decides to be honest about this one. "Yes, yes I do." He drops a kiss on top of her head. "But admit it, you love me for it, right?"

"More like in spite of it," she responds, and there's a tired grin in her voice. She pillows her head on her arms and closes her eyes again. "Do you like it?" she asks sleepily, and she's so perfect in that moment that it takes Nate a minute to realize she expects a response.

"Oh, I love it," he assures her, lying back down and clicking off the bedside lamp. "And believe me, by light of day I'm going to be studying the whole thing _very_ carefully; but I've got business tonight with...other things, and a little bit of ink definitely can wait at least that long. Right?" He smooths her hair back from her face, and she snores gently.

Nate rolls his eyes and kisses her again, and resumes his original rubbing of her back. There are some other things, it seems, that will have to wait until morning.

_fin. _


End file.
